MS-DOS


MS-DOS

Operating system for personal computers. MS-DOS was based on DOS, developed in 1980 by Seattle Computer Products. Microsoft Corp. bought the rights to DOS in 1981, and released MS-DOS with IBM's PC that year. Thereafter, most manufacturers of personal computers licensed MS-DOS as their operating system; by the early 1990s more than 100 million copies had been sold. Windows, a graphical user interface program based on MS-DOS, became a popular alternative with the release of Version 3.0 in 1990; Windows 95 fully integrated the operating system and the graphical interface.

Variants of MS-DOS

MS-DOS in full Microsoft Disk Operating System

This entry comes from Encyclopædia Britannica Concise.
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